The Evolution of Media and Production
Prior to World War 1, there were numerous AM radio stations broadcasting across the United States on an experimental or part-time basis. The debate as to who started the first commercial radio broadcast can be viewed at this Wikipedia page. After the war, in the early 1920’s, there was a explosive increase in the number of commercial radio broadcasting across the United States.
Television experiments continued into the early twentieth century, alternating between rotating disc and electrical scan systems. Before 1900, the all-electronic television system now in use was described by a variety of experimenters. By the early 1920‘s, there were some experimental television stations being licensed to use the spinning disc system.
In 1925, John Logie Baird in Britain successfully transmitted the first television picture with a greyscale image: the head of a ventriloquist's dummy nicknamed "Stooky Bill" in a 30-line vertically scanned image, at five pictures per second. In 1927, Philo T. Farnsworth transmitted the image of a dollar sign across his San Francisco apartment using his scanning beam and synchronization-pulse
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It attempted to control the emerging industry by forcing licensing of transmitters with the Secretary of Commerce, but this proved ineffective in preventing stations from engaging in frequency interference of each other as the industry grew. In 1927, Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927, which created the Federal Radio Commission (predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission). Its main purpose was to define broadcast bands, standardize frequency designations, and limit the number of stations that could operate after dark, when the AM signal could be carried further and more likely to cause interference with other